AIEF American International Education Foundation

Organized by the American International Education Foundation (AIEF) in cooperation with Taiwan Knowledge Bank (TKB), the American Language Teacher Training Workshop was held on March 6th and 7th, 2004, at the Taipei International Convention Center. Sponsors of the workshop were University & College Intensive English Programs in the USA (UCIEP), DASO Group, and the English Teachers' Association - Republic of China (ETA-ROC).

The purpose of the workshop was to present to Taiwan's English teachers the latest trends in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) from the perspectives of U.S. experts in the field, as well as to assist in addressing the continuing need to provide professional development opportunities that enhance the teaching skills of English language teachers in Taiwan's schools. The workshop's emphasis on "American language" was intended to distinguish English as it is commonly used at American educational institutions from the forms of English used in other countries.

AIEF assembled a strong team of presenters for the workshop, which served as a forum to allow participants to interact with American TESOL specialists from several prominent U.S. institutions. Presenting at the workshop were Prof. Christa Hansen (University of Oregon), Dr. James Purpura (Columbia University Teachers College), Dr. Alexandra Rowe (University of South Carolina), and Prof. Kathy Trump (George Mason University). The workshop was chaired by Stephen Smith, Director of AIEF's Washington, D.C. office.

Session topics included "Current & Future Trends in ESL Teaching" (all presenters), "CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) Technology as a Teaching Resource" (Prof. Hansen), "Effective Vocabulary Instruction" (Prof. Trump), "Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)" (Dr. Rowe), "New Considerations in Classroom Assessment: How can grammar and oral skills assessment be designed to support learning?" (Dr. Purpura), and "Insights into the New TOEFL" (Prof. Hansen). Held concurrently with the American Education Fair in Taipei, the workshop also included a special session offered by the workshop's presenters, joined by Prof. Deanna Wormuth (Georgetown University), to provide details on TESOL certificate and degree programs in the United States.

As a prologue to the workshop, the presenters offered overviews of several of the latest major trends in ESL teaching in the United States, including their potential applicability to English teaching practices in Taiwan.

This session focused upon public use and freely available web-based resources for English as Foreign Language instructors to give them a sampling of the kinds of on-line materials and tools available to use in classes. The information and demonstration were divided into resources for teachers --traditional skill areas instructional tips and support, lesson plan repositories, and research tips--, and interactive student resources using the web in class or in a lab-- interactive sites, using e-mail and discussion sites as a language tool.

The rich vocabulary of English lends precision and elegance to the language, but can be daunting to learners and teachers alike. In this session, participants looked at some effective and interesting ways to teach vocabulary. The techniques we examined help learners put the new words into long-term memory and help ensure that the words can be retrieved from memory when needed. These techniques help students learn words so well that they comprehend the words when they hear or read them and can use them in their speaking and writing. In addition, participants also looked at ways to help learners acquire new vocabulary when classroom vocabulary instruction has ended.

One technique that was examined is the use of word domains, words grouped around a single concept. Participants looked at some of the many verbs for the concept of walking, such as 'meander,' 'hobble,' 'hasten,' and 'saunter.' They learned how grouping words into domains helps students learn more words more quickly and easily. They also learned how words domains allow teachers to create meaningful activities and exercises.

English teachers who are looking for more effective and interesting ways to teach vocabulary left this session with many practical ideas that they can apply in their classrooms to enliven their vocabulary lessons. They gained more confident about helping their students learn the seemingly endless number of words in the English language.

According to many English language teaching methodologists, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the globally preferred pedagogical approach. In the 1990s, CLT as a concept spread through much of Asia. Dr. Alexandra Rowe discussed CLT, providing an overview of its origins, popularity, and characteristics. She also addressed common misconceptions and possible shortcomings of CLT, particularly when CLT is applied in some non-western cultures.

- New considerations in classroom assessment: How can grammar and oral skills assessments be designed to support learning?

Despite movements to diminish the role of grammar in the EFL curriculum, grammar provides the fundamental linguistic resource for all communication, and remains an essential part of communicative language use. Teachers need to know what grammar is, how to teach it, how it is learned, and how to assess if grammatical forms and their meanings have been acquired in different instances of language use. This talk presented an expanded framework of grammatical knowledge, accounting for both form and meaning dimensions, and provided practitioners with principles and procedures for constructing grammar assessment tasks that could be used to make educational and research decisions. We also discussed how grammar tasks can be scored so that information gleaned from these assessments can serve to promote further learning and development of explicit and implicit knowledge of grammar. Finally, this talk discussed how grammatical forms and a range of meanings can be assessed in the context of oral skills tasks.

The Next Generation TOEFL is coming September 2005! The new TOEFL, designed to help students demonstrate they have the English skills for academic success, will assess reading, writing, listening, and speaking in an academic context. In this session, we looked at the new exam and discussed the implications for the different stakeholders-ESL and EFL teachers, test takers, and universities that use the TOEFL for admissions decisions.

For English language teachers who are seeking information on advanced educational opportunities that can augment their teaching credentials, this session introduced a variety of TESOL certificate and degree programs offered at U.S. institutions. Participants obtained details about courses and admissions requirements directly from American TESOL program administrators and faculty members representing Columbia University's Teachers College, George Mason University, Georgetown University, University of Oregon, and University of South Carolina.

Over one hundred ninety teachers attended the two-day workshop. The tremendous success of the workshop underscored the critical need for continuing TESOL teacher training programs on Taiwan. An overwhelming majority of the attendees surveyed found the workshop to be beneficial and expressed their satisfaction with the presenters, topics, and venue. The results of the survey are listed below for reference.

Survey Questions	Very Satisfied	Satisfied	Fair	Not Satisfied
About the Workshop Topics	100%	0	0	0
About the Workshop Presenters	47.6%	43.7%	8.7%	0
About the Schedule	33%	46.6%	17.5%	2.9%
About the Venue	25.2%	45.6%	25.2%	3.9%
Was the Workshop beneficial?	35%	62.1%	3%	0
Will attend future Workshop by AIEF	95.2%	0	4.8%	0

Feedback from the attendees made it clear that many of Taiwan's teachers are seeking guidance with respect to the selection of teaching materials and adapting teaching methodologies for their own classrooms. The topics most favored by the group to be covered in future teacher training events were oral proficiency, listening comprehension, grammar, writing, and games. Training programs on Taiwan of two weeks or shorter, as well as programs outside of Taiwan lasting four weeks or longer, were also preferred. Nearly half of the survey's respondents indicated a desire to earn a TESOL certificate, while around one quarter are interested in earning a TESOL degree.

The 2004 spring workshop was designed to be a precursor to a major event in Taiwan focusing on TESOL teacher training and teaching resources that is planned for March 23, 2005. AIEF welcomes prospective teacher trainers and potential sponsoring organizations to communicate with us regarding the Spring 2005 event. Please contact Stephen Smith, email: stlsmith@aief-usa.org